Laudanum
by Angelas
Summary: 1918, New York. In which Mikoto hires an immigrant servant to tend to her home and her sons and her medicines, and Sasuke is nearly as bitter as he is obsessed. [sasunaru]
1. Four Floors

**It's been a long time. I'm very excited for this story.**

 **oOo**

The floorboards creak when he stands.

The four wooden walls which ensphere him immure with their weald-reek and stink. He stares at himself in the mirror, fastening clasp by clasp, the silver-gild latchings of his velveteen vest. From the rim of the mirror he finds that she, too, is looking at him. Some heartsick expression limned onto her lip.

"The orchids," she says. "Do you think he'll notice them?" With her white hand she reaches for her brush aside the bed and runs it through her tinted hair, pink like blemished cotton. "The lilacs your mother and I chose out for the hallway?"

She slides from the covers before he can answer. She is pale and wrapped in silk afore the window by the time she stands and leans beside it, toying at her fingertips. He tautens the cuff of his cutaway. Too tightly, and one button of three unthreads and springs, rolling to the niche of the floor ere landing underneath the bed.

"Sasu—"

"No," he says.

There is a vicious look in his eye, by the time he yanks his tie from its hanger and leaves.

 **oOo**

Four floors in all. The way to the parlour takes time.

Itachi is there.

Their mother sits at the head of the table, sallow with fever. She coughs horribly for every silence that befalls them, yet she maintains her posture. Proud enough in illness as she is lavish, stately mirrored through the stygian gowns she often wears.

Itachi sits on the opposite side, facing Sasuke. His left hand cradles a goblet of wine, though for the next half an hour he does not actually drink it.

The clock ticks. Ticks. Ticks. _Ticks_.

"Will Sakura not come down to join us?" Mikoto's tone is gentle when she says it. "Surely she bores."

Sasuke shrugs one shoulder, loafing back into his chair. She smiles at him.

"Do you miss Dover at all?" She nurses her tea. It steams, clutched tight in her hands. "The ocean?"

"No." He toys with the tassels of the napery. "Nor do I grieve for its efflux of fish."

Itachi is peering at him now, the slow narrow of his eyes a wordless disfavor.

"Your father always wanted to go there," Mikoto continues. Sasuke begins to suspect she would have said the same thing, no matter the word he might've answered her with. "To the wharfs of southern England, its castled shores." She turns towards Itachi, attempting to smile. "Didn't he, Itachi? How he spoke so much of the old forts, of the harbors..."

"He did. He was never partial of Japan."

As always, Itachi's response appeases their mother, more than enough. She reaches out, stroking the skin of his wrist. She chuckles, wiping the dam of her tears.

The scene is piddling. Sasuke wants to laugh. It is no secret in the dark, after all, that Mikoto can hardly function, much less cry, without speaking of the man who'd hung himself in the anteroom's closet just five months back. The sole reason why they'd left the menial comfort of their homeland, and then of some blasted ferry-town he'd gotten partially adhered to someplace in the boggy coastals of Europe. A town they'd hardly remained in, courtesy of his father having figured it was time to've offed himself with the nearest cordline. And now, in tragedy's upshot, his mother's more blatant extortion of him.

What with abetting him off into an Americanized betrothment, some old wish she must've weaned for herself as a girl prior to her parents having married her off to a man like Fugaku.

Sasuke does not care for it.

Now they are in New York.

In some ancient villa, out in the flat outskirts of Manhattan. Bordered by coppice and with a perfectly needless viewpoint of Ellis Island which televises the coming and going of Italy's immigrants, along with the Polish and the occasional surges of Slavs. The reason, he thinks, why Mikoto has contracted such ail of disease. Added, the obvious sleight of her inexhaustible grief, whyfor they wait like fools at the table, for her newly appointed servant-thing, one that may cook and care for the dust of the floor and her medicines.

All week she has prattled of it. And if ever she's shown genuinity since the day she screamed bloody at the night of her widowing, it is in this moment in which she anticipates the arrival of her mendicant waif like cake and a present.

The hour stretches. Itachi is still as a rock while Mikoto coughs and mentions plentiful nonsense. Sasuke is on the verge of leaving by the time Sakura is heard descending the staircase, the clapper of her heels echoing across the estate.

Mikoto straightens, neatly tucking a loose ringlet of hair behind one ear which carries diamond. Itachi just sits there, staring at him.

" _What_ ," he cuts.

Itachi does not indulge him.

Rather, he veers his gaze not until Sakura at last walks in. He stands immediately, tall as he is lean, conceding her arrival in guiding her, palm-for-palm, towards an empty seat. She swans her neck and thanks him. Already Sasuke feels the initials of a headache pushing in. For the girl is aside him now, all apple balm and perfumes.

She glances in his direction, smiling at him. He averts from her, does not return it.

"So lovely, isn't she," Mikoto wheedles. "Proper. Like those dames we met in Leicester. Do you remember?"

There is a pause, as if she were expecting fully for Sasuke to blandish over and agree. He agrees to nothing, and the pause turns stiffly into indelicacy.

Instead, he looks towards Itachi, who for the first time that morning rouses and tastes the wine in his glass. There is a cruel cinch at the corner of his lip when he is done, one that only Sasuke has ever been able to unriddle and descry _._ A wasted second more, and Sasuke knows his mother rankles. And why would she not become this pestered, when she wants her wish of America more than she kneads her want of wealth. To be known and to be fawned and to be a part of its haut monde society as years ago she was amongst Yokohama's viperous nobility. This, at least, Sasuke has unearthed of her already.

In truth, he suspects he would not have minded much her insularity, had the girl beside him not become his mother's lucked out opportunity— _through_ him.

Sakura starts to speak.

"If only my grandmother would agree," she offers coyly. "Are you feeling well, Mikoto?"

Thereon, they talk.

And talk.

Sasuke feels he might not bear it.

 **oOo**

Soon, there is a belling at the foyer's entrance. It echoes through the walls, low and faint.

Mikoto's eyes light up. Her fingers go to dandle at her earrings. She turns towards Sasuke, beaming and expectant.

"Darling," she says. "If you would—"

He won't.

"I'll go."

Sakura stands, fingertips grazing lax against his shoulder. His mother gapes at him.

" _Sasuke_ —"

"It's really fine," reassures Sakura. "I promise."

She tilts her head and leaves. The air reeks of her, like his shoulder, and it lingers like an insect mid his nostrils, even after she is gone.

When the smacking of her heels subsides, Sasuke reaches forth across the table, snatching for himself the bottle of Bourgogne wine. He twirls it by its neck atop the table. Then he uncorks it, quaffing it like water till the taste of grape numbs dry upon his tongue. And all the rest that is left inside it, he stands and pours onto the tablecloth. It roses out, hemorrhaging the napery. His mother half-stands, wheezing through coughs some gasping shock of degradation.

His brother sits there, staring blandly at the painting on the wall.

Sasuke sits.

He does not care for it.

 **oOo**


	2. Woodwork

**All beta credit to my love, "Vivian" on ao3.**

 **oOo**

He is given three things: fare, a single stamped photograph, and an address.

The city is cold and the streets are wet. Dirt layers on the sidewalks, tenement buildings as grey as the sky above them. A cab waits for him outside of the foreperson's office. He goes to it.

"Naruto?"

"Yes."

The driver looks him up and down, flicking out a lighter before kindling the giant cigar in his mouth.

"Get in."

Naruto gets in, valise first, shutting the door carefully beside him. There's frost on the dashboard, mark of soot on the seats. The car revs alive, warming engine. The frost melts. The car moves. People outside doubletake and hurry to crowd around the next cab that parks. The driver turns to glance at him at a stopmark. The grey derby he wears shadows his eyes.

"You new here?"

"Yes."

"How new?"

Naruto thinks. "Some months."

"You look pretty young to be maidin' around all by yourself."

"I'm fifteen."

"You know these Japs?"

"Japs?"

The man laughs. But then something happens and he starts to gag. He rolls down the window and coughs phlegm out onto the road. Naruto does not know exactly what the driver tells him after that. He talks fast and his words are all slurred through his cigar. But after a while Naruto understands, that the trip will not be a short one.

He stares at the photograph in his hand. Browns and whites. He assumes that the villa will be large, larger than the patisserie he used to mop, that its highest floor would look as if it grazed against the sky.

Time passes. And through mostly empty grove and marsh expanse, Naruto sees that his predictions are right.

The villa stands out. A lone monument struck into the clouded distance. Gate of iron, the manor's finials needled high from both its sides. He straightens up, pressing his forehead against the window glass.

"Pretty spiffy, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Only house you'll find for the next five miles."

This far, Naruto can see rosebushes flanking tall all along the property, gnarled and uncut. How the land goes and ranges out, untamed, too flat to guess a proper measure, but with a panoramic viewpoint of the offing, the massive fullness of the sea.

"You know," the driver starts. "Last family that stayed here dropped dead a few years back. Sons and all."

"How?"

"Sleepy sickness," the man says. He puffs up smoke. "Ever heard? Wake up a little tired one morning, see green little men that ain't really there, wobble a bit, then, bam, you're stiff as a cornstalk."

The man laughs. Naruto stays quiet, eyes on the lea.

"How far do you think it goes?" he asks. "The land?"

"Not till it meets at least halfway into the thicket line." The man pauses. "That Uchiha broad must've married a boat-load of yen."

"Thicket?"

The man snorts.

"The woods, _kid_." He grumbles something. "Keep forgetting you're one of'em _Polacks_."

The word stings. Each time Naruto hears it, it stings even more. His jaw grits, his fists clench. The photograph crinkles quietly in his hand. Still. Naruto keeps his mouth shut.

Soon, a sudden sludge of wet grass begins to mire down the car. The driver stops and tells him that he can't do it, says that if he keeps going, the mud will cake and ruin down the rails. So the man drops him off about half a mile down from the manor's gateway, not saying anything else.

Naruto looks down, shoes clot with slime. The valise he carries sinks him all the more.

The driver opens the window just enough to extend his hand. Naruto pays him, tells him thank you and goodbye.

The man counts the bills, shuts the window, and drives off.

 **oOo**

Naruto does not know how long it takes him to actually reach the mansion's patio. He hesitates before the door, looking behind himself.

A stark trail of mud tails him, marring the flagstone and now the cobbled doorstep of where he stands. He swallows, his hand stark-white amidst the worn handle of his bag. The other blunders, uncertain between the safety of his side and the initiative of the manor's knocking clasp.

He shuts his eyes. And without allowing himself to think about it twice, drums the metal clapper loud enough that he can hear its echo coming from inside. He lets go of it as if stung. He forces his gaze to the side, counting precious seconds.

The rose there reminds him of his mother.

The aster, of his father.

The daffodil, of home.

He tells himself these things. _Retells_ himself these things—

Until the door creaks slow and opens.

 **oOo**

A woman greets him.

She stands an inch taller with the heels she wears. Her hair is trimmed short, her complexion is fair. She grasps at the shawl that threads from her shoulders. Her breath marks the air, reminding Naruto of the snow that is slowly beginning to flake down and set. Her dress is the color of sand, the hem of it embroidered with fur. Her eyes are green. Her lips are pink. Her smooth white hands look soft as she waits for him to speak.

He swallows hard, tries to speak. But can't.

"Are you him?" she asks. "The boy?"

He nods.

She smiles at him. He feels he might want to nod again.

"Come in." She steps aside. The door creaks as she hauls it farther open. "Lady Mikoto will be so happy to see you."

He steps in, careful to remain beside the doorframe. She latches the locks and from where he stands he can smell the fragrance of her lotion. Sweet, like apples.

She turns to face him.

"Are you cold?" It's more a whisper but her voice echoes out into the enormity of the entrance room. He shakes his head. "Here, let me take that."

She grabs his bag. He feels their fingers touch.

The bag is heavy even for him, yet she hefts it up against her hip as if it were nothing. Still. He wants to tell her no, that he can carry it. He tries to. A strange noise comes out, instead. Words parch, thoughts flub. She might have noticed. Might have not. The floorboards creak beneath them.

He can't stop looking at her.

"Actually," she starts after a too-long moment. Her free hand goes to grip uneasy at her arm. She looks away, avoiding his direction. "It's best...if you take it."

She puts down his valise. It lands with a thud.

She steps back, turns, and does not speak to him again.

 **oOo**

He follows her in silence, a few steps behind.

The manor is massive.

There are countless paintings strung upon the walls, each with the same looping signature as the one before it. Most are portraits of people that feel to be staring at him, doleful and distant. Some are all shadows and shapes while others look formless.

One in particular stands out to him. It shows a woman. Long black hair and with a silver pendant colled around her neck. Her hands are folded on her lap and unlike the others her dark eyes are gazing edgeways. She looks sad. Naruto turns his head to glance at it again. Its signature is missing.

When at last they reach the hallways of the second floor, Naruto notices that the ceilings are lightly carved with floral woodwork. Still, cobwebs dull away most of the designs. Lint amounts upon old decor, some mottled in with dust balls. Yet, on each piece of furniture he notes that there are lilacs potted in with orchids. Each assortment lies neatly placed inside of jardinieres, patterned in with care. A few of the flowers are purple, but most are rouge in color.

Like her hair.

Suddenly, the woman stops a few feet away from a wide and doorless room. Candlelight pours from it, splaying all across the wooden floor. She turns to look at him.

"This is the parlour," she says. "Lady Mikoto's inside."

He nods. But this time she does not smile at him.

 **oOo**

He puts down his valise and enters the room.

He does not know what he had expected. He knows only that almost immediately he blunders, head to toe, and freezes.

All eyes on him. Naruto stands there, unable to move. He sees and yet he doesn't. The woman from before goes to sit, as if presuming he'd know what to do.

He doesn't. And if once he did, in the short span of just these seconds he has forgotten most of what he knows. His name, all sense.

He stares at the table the family is encompassed around, heartbeat thrumming near his ears. His own breath deafens him as it tautens in his throat, his fingers clutching air. Haze-like, he notices that the tablecloth is drenched. Red liquid drips quietly from the table's edge. And truly, it seems as if a scuttle of blood had been sluiced all across its surface.

"This is—"

"No need, Sakura. Surely a young man can speak for himself."

The voice is gentle, almost kind. Naruto follows it with his eyes, willing himself to look up and away from the soiled tablecloth. He catches sight of its source, and finds he is greeted with an elegant contrast.

Long black hair. A lashed and dovelike gaze, a single silver pendant—

The woman from the painting.

Naruto's head is bowed low before he knows it.

"Hello, ma'am," he manages. The words come out in fragments. A swell of blood rushes to his face and stays there. Unlike the painting, in person, Mikoto regards him, her nails painted red and her gown subfusc in violets. "I—"

She chuckles. It's a soft sound that allays the room and fills it.

"Etiquette can wait," she tells him. "You've only just arrived, and we've been waiting half of morning just to meet you. Here, sit down."

He hears her rise, the splintered scrawl of the chair being grated back. She is on her feet, then suddenly she begins to cough. Subdued at first, then in jagged rasps. Naruto dares to look, a familiar dread he thought he'd buried building in his gut. She is bent and grasping at her necklace, her knuckles paper-white. A man is at her side in moments, tall and with his hair tied loose along his back, easing her in the inflection of their language.

Sakura goes to her, too.

Time slows. Naruto takes one step forward, maybe two, the wild need in him to go and help— _to be of use_ —trimming the hesitation in his nerves. The scathing stare of one other at the table stills him in his tracks, however.

An empty bottle in his hand, sitting back, open-legged and reclined, swirling the carafe by its neck in circles on the planar of his thigh. His eyes are black, cryptic and intrusive. His hair frames his face and the unmoving corners of his mouth form a crude sharp line.

In every underlying manner, he mirrors the marbled image of Mikoto. He slams the bottle on the table, and stands up. They are both perhaps half an ell apart, by the time he shoves Naruto aside, the clash harsh enough between them to have lurched Naruto backwards towards the wall.

The man absconds into the hallway, spurning what Naruto assumes to be his mother's plight. A waft is left behind, of wine and plum.

Naruto breathes it in. Learns it, and contemns it by heart.

 **oOo**


	3. Like Grass

**all beta credit to my love as always. man, I love writing this story. gotta be honest.**

 **oOo**

The coughing only worsens, and when at last it seems to simmer, Mikoto keels.

Naruto is motionless by the time Mikoto flounders in her footing. Her eyes begin to shut, her lips part, and in a downrush of mauve, she faints and succumbs.

Sakura cries out. Her hands fly over her mouth to muffle her shout. The man with the long hair has Mikoto nestled neatly in his arms before she can fall, his expression unreadable. Like a doll, Mikoto's gown bunches up, her hair rivering vinelike.

Without effort, the man carries her out of the room. Sakura hurries and follows behind.

Naruto, as well, his heart beating fast.

 **oOo**

They do not tell him to to leave. Much as well as they do not tell him to stay.

Naruto remains, anyway, inert where he feels he will not be of burden.

He observes his surroundings. The room is generous in size, festooned with plants and with six mounted photographs. One shows a pale little boy in a sailor's outfit, face round and pouting. It rests on Mikoto's nightstand, along with one other of a grim-looking man donning military regalia.

The curtains are pulled open. Grey daylight mottles in, the ocean mouthing its shore amid the horizon. The man from before stands next to the window, facing away from the room. His arms are crossed, his hair a black-brown. For most of the hour that passes, he does not speak. Until now.

"Sakura. Where is Hatake?" He adds, "He's late."

The voice is baritone. Sakura turns to face him, her fingers grazing the dampened planar of Mikoto's brow.

"He said he would be here soon," she tells him. "Within the hour."

Sakura turns to face Naruto, and for the first time since meeting her, she regards him with an affable look. She motions for him to come closer. He does.

"I'm sorry for this," she says. Her tone is soft. "She was so excited to meet you, but truly she's...she's not well." She scoots over on the ottoman, enough to let him sit beside her. "A few months ago she fell ill and ever since she cannot get better." She pauses, placing her hand atop Mikoto's. "She never tells me, but I know she hurts."

Naruto stays quiet. He gazes at Mikoto's sleeping form, the shallow rise and fall of her chest. More than before, she resembles the painting.

"You know. I don't think I've asked for your name before," Sakura says. She looks at him. Naruto swallows. "I'm Sakura." She motions sidelong with a glance. "That's Itachi. Mikoto's eldest."

"Naruto," he croaks, then clears his throat. "I...it's nice to meet you."

She smiles. "You're not from around here, are you?"

He hesitates.

"It's not a bad thing, you know."

He nods.

"Sasuke," she adds. "I saw what he did earlier. Sometimes…" She looks at her lap. "Sometimes he does things he doesn't really mean."

Naruto shifts, wanting to question, but Sakura changes the subject before he can think it.

"I'll go and fetch some water," she states. "In case my lady wakes. Stay here."

He stays.

 **oOo**

A loud bang echoes in from the manor's entrance. Naruto stands in an instant.

"She will get that."

It's a whisper, barely audible, yet Naruto freezes at its tone. He sits back down, does not respond nor does he question. Itachi crosses the room, hovering as a shadow on the opposite side of his mother's sleeping form. Naruto does not risk to look at him. He keeps his head down till a moment after there are footsteps just outside the hallway.

Sakura appears afore the door. A tall man is at her side, white of hair but eccentrically young. He carries a leather-brown attaché, suit unadorned in greys and blacks. He steps inside, more towards the light, and Naruto cannot help but notice that an old scar trails down his left eye, glazing it gauzelike. The vision in that one, he thinks, must be gone.

The man approaches Mikoto's bedside. Itachi moves aside. The man lays down his case and unlatches it, wordlessly uncoiling a stethoscope which he then secures into his ears. He gloves his hands and undoes Mikoto's gown from the front, low enough to bare just above her breasts. She rouses in her sleep. He presses the steel-end of the device against her skin, listening.

Naruto feels like he shouldn't be looking.

"Is she fine, doctor?" Sakura asks. She steps closer, hands clasped beneath her chin.

Itachi crosses his arms, expression impassive though the strain at the end of his lip betrays his air of insouciance.

"There might as well be half a lake burrowed in her alveoli," the doctor says. He ungloves his left hand, pressing the back of it against Mikoto's forehead. His eyes narrow, doing the same to the side of her neck. "She's strewn a high fever." He pauses, allowing his arm to fall back. "I can give her another prescription of oxycodone."

Itachi comes forward. "Opioids do _nothing_ for her. You know this."

"Antiserum therapy, then. Again."

"She wouldn't want that," Sakura presses. "It put her in so much pain—"

"Alright," the doctor says plainly. He sighs. "And since I know she also wouldn't _want_ to be safely medicated to a saline stand—"

"If she must, she will."

Immediately, Sakura snaps around to glare at Itachi. "How could you say that?"

Naruto steps back, on the verge of leaving the room, but the doctor's attention falls upon him before he can move.

"You are her varlet, no?"

Naruto nods, swallowing dryly.

"Come, let me show you something."

He hesitates, can feel the weight on him, Sakura's demurral and Itachi's scrutiny. Still, the doctor motions him forward, closer, until Naruto is standing right beside him. Naruto's breathing quickens. The distinct waft of antiseptic, of berried vodka mingled in with cinders of a recent cigarette. Like the foreman at his office as he'd stamped through chart and permit, but instead... _pleasant_.

Naruto watches in silence as the doctor retrieves a glass phial from his case. He rounds on his heel, facing Naruto directly. The man is tall. Perhaps taller than Itachi.

"This," Hatake states. "Is oxycodone. One tablet every night. The hour doesn't matter." He smiles. His tone is cheerful. It feels out of place. "And this." He slips something thin from his breast-pocket, a glass ampule filled with a waterish liquid. "Is epinephrine." He asks, "Do you understand?"

Naruto nods.

"Good. Every morning at, say, eight, or if she is feeling particularly restless four hours hence, this is what you do." Naruto watches as the doctor rummages through his case again, uncovering a see-through syringe. He dangles it in front Naruto's face, clarifying. "Make sure it always looks like this. If it doesn't, flatten the bevel and toss it." He smiles.

With deft hands the doctor uncaps the needle, puncturing it deeply and quickly into the pliant surface of the ampule. Naruto watches, learning quickly.

"Are you _mad_ , Hatake," snarls Itachi.

The doctor does not rouse, instead gazing carefully at the needle-shaft which now drools a single drop of fluid. He looks at Naruto, clement as before.

"Her arm is best," he says, pinning the inside of her elbow with his fingertip. He presses down, searching for a pulse. "Though the vein here is rather slim. Easiest to miss." He takes his hand away, as if considering. "Her upper thigh, need be. _Very_ upper thigh if the need is greater." He chuckles. "Though I would leave its recourse strictly secondary."

Itachi leaves. Only Sakura remains. Hatake goes to his knees, the syringe leveled in his grip in a deliberate off-angle for Naruto to be able to see. He presses the apex to the soft-joint of Mikoto's elbow, her veins darkly visible through the marble of her skin. Then, the needle sinks in and disappears.

Slow, the doctor pushes down upon the plunger. The epinephrine instills itself smoothly. He glides the needle out, bloodless clean.

Naruto's wrists begin to feel weird.

Hatake stands. "Easy, no?"

Naruto does not gamble a reply. The doctor doesn't seem to mind.

"I'll leave this here," he says, setting down two covered bundles on the nightstand. "The doses for inoculation and four extra phials." A pill bottle, too, which he now hands over to Naruto. "Salicin, for her pain. Every five hours. Follow what I say and her fever should mitigate by the end of the week." He adds, "It's important that she keeps hydrated. Homespun juice with her breakfast. Preferably carrot. No wine."

Sakura takes a step towards him.

"Thank you," she says.

Hatake smiles at her. Naruto sees it, how her cheeks slightly redden. She fiddles with her hair.

The doctor closes his attaché, tilts his head at her, and leaves.

 **oOo**

The hours pass and the sky outside begins to darken.

Sakura waters the plants in Mikoto's room in silence, trimming away their withered stems. Not far from her, Naruto irons. Cotton gowns and nightrobes and sometimes undergarments. He does it slowly, firmly, right to left and press, mimicking each instruction Sakura had bid of him.

He traces the satin with his fingers. It's soft. It reminds him of his mother, of the wool apron she often wore, green like grass and spent from use. How she would gently tie its ends around herself when she woke to bake from night to day—babka, tarts and custard pączki—most that wouldn't sell. Her hands stained, cream and flour, how she would share with him her hopeful smirks.

Naruto can feel his throat begin to bristle. His brow tautens, nearly quivers inward. He misses her. He wants her back. He _misses_ his father—

"Naruto?"

He bites the inside of his cheek. It splits and bleeds. He sets aside the iron.

"Yes, ma'am?"

Sakura snorts in amusement. He hears her approaching, the scent of her as sweet as when he met her.

"I told you my name," she teases. "Besides, _ma'am_ makes me sound like I'm already married." She giggles. Naruto turns to look at her. There, in the candlelight, he thinks she could not be prettier. "Anyway. I think...we should let my lady rest. I'm thinking that with all the noise we're making she may wake and feel sick again."

Naruto agrees. More silence between them. Naruto opens his mouth to speak, but Sakura looks the other way, suddenly hurried. She takes the pile of clothes from the ironing board and stacks them quick into one of Mikoto's wooden dressers. She shuts it and stands, dusting her dress with the back of her hand. Her demeanor has shifted.

"I'll show you where you'll sleep," she says. "Come with me."

He goes with her.

 **oOo**

They walk the halls. Topmost floor, where there are less paintings and even less decor.

Sakura carries a salver in her hand, middled bright with candle. She lights tapers with it as they go. It illumines the manor in singular bursts, revealing cobwebs and the decrepit flaws on some of the floorboards.

It's colder on the fourth floor, and darker. But Naruto does not mind. He watches Sakura quietly, the courtly sway of her hips, the subtle shape of her thighs.

She stops at one of the closed doors, spinning on her heel to front him.

"This one keeps warm during snowfall," she tells him.

She unlocks the door. It stutters open, creaking sharply at the hinges. Inside, the room is pitch black, if not for the moonlight shimmering in from an uncurtained lucarne.

"Here, take it." She hands him the salver. "There's an oil lamp inside, by the davenport."

He nods and thanks her. He cannot help but stare at her. The lime of her eyes, the flush of her lip. His stomach slants. They are so close now.

"Goodnight," she says, stepping back. She states it frankly.

She twirls away and leaves him there, the hurried clacking of her heels echoing throughout the hallway.

Naruto looks to the side, feeling stupid.

 **oOo**

The first thing he notices when he steps inside is that his valise is already there. By the wall and next to the doorframe, and on an ancient desk, a plate of food (cold now, maasdam cheese and scrambled egg) of which he goes over to and scarfs down immediately.

He wipes his mouth and looks around him, spotting the oil lamp atop the davenport. He lights it with the candle Sakura had given him and the room enlivens, flicker-yellow. He walks around, probing cobwebs, drawing little pictures with his finger onto the dusty surfaces of furniture. The flooring moans whenever he moves. There is no bed but there is a lush-looking divan at the left flank of the room. He goes over to it and sits down. It's fleecy, dipping slightly in upshot to his weight. The armrest is sloped in, snug enough to make a pillow.

He puts his head down and curls in on himself. He wants to unpack, clean what he can, but his eyelids flutter closed, easing him to sleep.

 **oOo**

Naruto rouses the next morning on reflex.

His eyes shoot open, the reserve-oil in the lamp's burner depleted.

The light is glum outside the lucarne. The sky is heathered greyish. It must be at least the start of dawn.

He stands, his limbs aching. He could sleep hours more and gladly, but he shoves aside the urge. He hurries to his bag and tugs out clean clothes. Plain slacks, long-sleeve, and an orange slipover. There is a squared mirror on the wall by the softwood desk but he does not use it. Instead, he ruffles the knots from his hair with his hands and hopes for the best.

He shuts the door behind him, heading downstairs where he knows the kitchens must be, the sole thought in his mind reeling: the carrot juice Hatake had said would be best for Mikoto every morning.

The foyer is huge, but he locates the scullery. The main kitchen is next to it, mostly empty if not for a cookstove and a few cartoned boxes piled messy on one of the countertops. He looks inside one of them. Corn, kale, potatoes, bundles of garlic. A pair of pumpkins, too, by and by a larger batch of tomatoes. He looks in each box until he locates the carrots. There's a cluster of them beneath a parcel of peaches. He rinses them in the sink before filling a bowl to rag off the grime on the cutting board. A knife he finds, too. He checks it for dullness.

He tries to be quick. He knows the eighth hour nears, meaning Mikoto's dose of epinephrine. His nerves tangle at the thought. He tries not to dwell on it, of the needle he'll have to level within his shaking hand in order to transfix it just right without _hurting_ her—

He swats down the carrots, prepping the first to dissever. Already his palm is sweating against the haft of the knife, perhaps an itch away from accidentally cutting his opposite hand, were it not for the sudden sound of Sakura. Naruto freezes.

"Do you need any help?" she asks.

He turns around, lowering the knife.

She's wearing a cream-colored dress, a wool plaided pelerine buttoned across her chest. No heels this time, but flat-soled slip-ons. Like a dancer, he thinks.

He shakes his head.

She smiles at him and steps in, anyway. She goes over to his side, plucking the knife from his hand.

"I'll take care of it," she tells him. "Maybe you could soap the plates?"

He nods, unquestioning. He draws a basin and lathers soap into it. Then he begins to dip in each plate, scrubbing thoroughly against the backs and the surfaces.

"How were you planning to wheel the juice, anyway?" she asks him. There's bemusement in her tone. "Do you even know where the pestle is?"

"I could've looked," he says.

"Or you could've wasted a lot of time," she shoots. "It's okay to ask for help. I'm here. Or Itachi. It's just your second day."

He steals a glance at her. She cuts each carrot neatly, a graceful pattern to the practiced whorls of her wrist.

"I'm sorry," he says, looking back to the plates.

"For what?"

He wants to tell her that he regrets frightening her yesterday. That he wishes he could have done things better, accepted her help.

"I don't know," he mutters.

Silence. It fills with the clangor of plates, the incessant thump of the cutting board. It's not long until she speaks to him again.

"Where did you come from?"

"I…" He dithers. He wants to say Paris or lie. "Lublin."

Sakura pauses. "Is that...in Russia?"

" _No_ ," he snaps. Guilt, however, grips over him. He swallows briskly. "I mean, no, it isn't."

He sees her nod from the corner of his eye, her short hair dandling her face.

"It's in Poland," he confesses.

"You don't have to impugn yourself." She sighs. "It was thoughtless of me." She middles the next carrot. "I know of the war. Some of it. Few people here care to consider hardship. But...I understand."

He wants to agree but also disagree, wants to change the topic, but all of both languages he knows jilt him.

"My father was a poor German man," she says. "And my mother a Virginian wellborn." She tucks a tress of hair behind one ear. "She ran away with him to some farm. They weren't very rich, but my mother had me, anyway." She pauses. "If I'm honest, I don't remember them. I was so young. But my grandmother, she took me in after they died. And, well, she's really a bit of a magnate." She chuckles. "She raised me right here in New York. She likes her galas. That's how I met Sasuke, three days before he asked me to marry him."

Naruto's vision splinters.

The plate he was holding slips from his hands and shatters loud to the floor. He goes to his knees, hiding his face, the painful clench in his gut. Yet, to his torment, Sakura sinks down along with him, her smooth white hands interloping with his own in many nervous accidents. They reach for the same cusp of porcelain. His hand jostles hers, causing blood to quickly rill from her palm. She stands, gasping. He stands along with her, unable to apologize, though wanting to desperately. He gapes at her, instead, wide-eyed and stuttering.

"It's fine," she assures him. She cradles her hand. Blood oozes onto the other. "I'll bandage it. I'll be right back."

Naruto takes one step towards her, braving to follow. He stops when he sees someone blocking her path, weight balanced against the kitchen entrance.

"Sasuke—"

She looks behind her.

"Go," Sasuke says. "You're bleeding."

A pause, as if she were hesitant to heed him. Still, Sakura nods, withdrawing towards the staircase.

Naruto stays behind, watching.

Sasuke watches him, too.

Unhurried, Sasuke shoves his weight from the doorframe, approaching. In this light, Naruto realizes that he is the frowning child from Mikoto's photo-frame. That in person he is older, paler, imperially tall and that his look of scorn is vicious.

Sasuke stops by the countertop, looming over the spot where Sakura had piled all the plates by size. He flattens his palm atop the first one, and with a single motion of his hand, glides it along and allows it to drop. It smashes to the floor. The pieces strum. Before they quell, Sasuke drops down another one.

Naruto looks up, meeting Sasuke's stare.

"Pick it up," says Sasuke.

It sounds neither a command nor an inquest. Naruto's brow begins to pinch, his fingers making fists.

"Pick it _up_."

He doesn't want to. And would not have done it, were it not for his knees already bending to betray him. He obeys. He does it blindly. Doesn't think, just grasps shard for shard, a jagged pile balanced in his palm.

"Get up."

Naruto gets up. Sasuke steps closer.

"You like looking, don't you." He slaps Naruto's hand, smattering the shards back onto the ground. "The way her tits jump when she laughs for you."

Sasuke corners him against the sink. His height looms imminent, breath fanning acrid grape. Naruto braces himself against the counter, refusing to touch or even graze him.

Sasuke does not relent. He leans in, _pressing_ firmly.

"I wonder," he whispers. "What else do you like?"

He lingers. Then he moves away. And without another word, he nips his lip and leaves the kitchen.

Sakura is there, clutching a roll of bandages against her chest.

 **oOo**

 **leave me a line and i'll squeal like an idiot**


	4. Tearaway

**finals got in the way, but now they are done and my free time has balanced. onward!**

 **oOo**

Sakura walks in, quietly unrolling the gauze. She tightens it around her wrist as she does, hooking it tight into the arc of her thumb.

She clips it in place, not saying anything, and goes to where an old broom is. She begins to sweep, piling the porcelain. Her gaze keeps strict towards the ground, unblinking.

Naruto does not press otherwise, does not trust himself to. For there is still anger slit on his tongue, such ache in his throat for what Sakura had revealed of her espousal, the crude feeling of Sasuke still smeared upon him, how easily Sasuke had won, how easily Naruto had cowered.

His eyes narrow. Shame chews his stomach.

When Sakura is finished, she leaves the pile of porcelain behind and goes into the scullery. She returns soon after, mortar and pestle in hand. She skids out a jar from the cupboard, pinching grain into the stone along with a single run of sorghum. She does not look at him. Her movements are stringent. She grinds the rings of carrot by the handful, using the whole of her weight to crush each batch into a sodden mishmash of color. Her hair hides her face, yet Naruto notices how blood begins to resurface through the wrap of her bandages.

He turns, busying himself with the stove and with the cracking of eggs. He tells himself it must be his fault, reminds himself it _isn't_ —

"What did he say to you."

Her voice is strained, her arms slightly shaking from the incessant over-push of her weight. Naruto watches the eggs sizzle in spurts on the skillet.

"Nothing," he says.

She doesn't respond, nor does she act like she heard him. She rinses her hands before leaving.

 **oOo**

When all is finished, Naruto arrays silverware onto a tray. The pitcher of extract, as well. Along with a tall-glass, demitasse, and plates.

He clasps the platter with both hands, taking mindful steps as he goes to scale the stairway. Everything rattles amidst the climb, the pitcher tilting whenever he takes a step too fast. It makes him nervous. And when he thinks his legs might fault at last, he locates the door to Mikoto's bedroom, knocking gently with the tip of his foot.

"Yes?"

He swallows and shoves the latch of the door aside with his elbow, bracing the platter against the wall so that he may twist upon the handle. He enters, greeted by the comely sight of Mikoto brushing through the long black mantle of her hair. She sits inside her duvets, her violet gown replaced by a gauzy nightdress.

Naruto veers his gaze, focusing instead on the sway of the tray. He steps forward, mindful to shut the door behind him.

"Good morning, ma'am," he says. "I brought your food."

He hears her lay aside her hairbrush. Still, she does not speak to him. She looks at him. He shifts in place, blood rushing to his face.

"Ma'am...?"

Her fingertips graze her mouth. Then she starts to giggle. Its lilt gladdens the utter silence of the room. Naruto blinks, then swallows, greeted by her beckon to come on towards her.

He scutters to comply. She leans back against the bed-frame, placing a pillow across her lap. Carefully, he sets the tray on it, setting the pitcher on the nightstand. She gazes at the food. Then she turns and smiles at him faintly.

"Thank you," she says.

Naruto bows his head. He stands dumbly for a second, uncertain yet aware that he must still go through with the injection. Thankfully, she seems to read him, and with a glance, she bids him to sit beside her on the ottoman. He does, heart-rate thumping in his gut. He is closer to her now than he's ever been since meeting her, the floral fragrance of her hair.

She lifts her fork and begins to dissever through the egg. She eats in mostly silence, not once grating against the plate. Naruto peeks only when he thinks she may not notice, and sees that she wears a single diamond ring. That her nails are cut short, neatly sheened, and that even now she dons her silver necklet.

"What is your name?" she asks him.

She curls her fingers around the tall-glass. Naruto tilts the pitcher for her, pouring up just before the brim.

"Naruto."

She chuckles. "Like the fish cake?"

He half-nods, unsure if what she means is what he thinks.

"My husband and I, we would go together during Yokohama midnights. Often he would feast on kamaboko. Narutomaki had been his favorite, twelve in every bowl."

She takes a sip of carrot juice. Then another. Naruto listens, watches her smile.

"I still remember how the streets would light up, silk lanterns all along the markets. From nightfall until sunrise." She looks in the direction of the window, the grey stasis of the outside. "At times, we would go to the _ochaya_ and Fugaku would always frown and want to leave. Then he and I would tread across the millponds, our hands holding in secret from underneath my _sode_ , until we would reach home and both my little boys would still be fast asleep."

She pauses, setting down her glass.

"Sasuke, always snoring with his brother's haori bundled in his arms." She laughs. "Drooling on it, too. Mind you, he was only seven."

Naruto pictures it. And before he can control it, he grins and giggles along with her.

The humor simmers. She watches him a moment longer.

"There it is," she tells him. "That handsome smile."

Naruto's face brightens, stomach quailing warmly. He looks down, tries to focus on his knees.

"Do not be afraid to laugh," she says. "Though I understand that it can be difficult."

He swallows. "And your husband…?"

"He is dead," she tells him plainly.

It is no difficult thing, unriddling her heartache. Still, he does not pry. He nods, toying with his sleeves.

Soon, she finishes her food and half the pitcher of the extract. He relieves her of the platter. It does not take long for her cough to rev anew. He checks for the time on the clock and quickly goes to the medicine bundles Hatake had left for her. He locates the phials, inspecting all five syringes for flaws or oxidation. All looks well and he steadies his hands, quickly piercing one of the needles into the pliant surface of the ampule. Slow, he swells the barrel towards the exact dosage. Then he dislodges the needle. He wraps it all back save for one tablet of oxycodone, and goes to Mikoto, whose cough has only gotten worse.

She covers her mouth with one of her blankets and lays out her arm, exposing the inner joint of her elbow. Naruto hesitates. The cough makes her whole body shake. He tries to find the proper words to inform her, but once more, she reads him. She holds her breath. Her eyes clench shut, the painful upsurge of her chest.

The coughing quells, if for a moment. Naruto drops to his knees, leveling the bevel onto her skin where first he pinpoints vein. His palm dampens, his vision blears. Yet, he steels himself, carefully dipping the needle into her skin. When half its shaft is sheathed, he pushes down upon the plunger, instilling the epinephrine. He can feel Mikoto rouse then stiffen, her face hidden in the other direction.

The needle is thicker than he'd noticed. Naruto chews on his lip, realizing that the incursion is hurting her.

It's over. He glides it out. Smidgens of blood amount where the shaft had once been. He panics.

"Don't fret," she tells him. "Birth pangs are worse."

She tries to smile, but her cheer has deflated. Her breath is uneven. She gazes at him patiently. He blinks and realizes that she is waiting for the oxycodone. He gives it to her, hands her what remains of her drink.

She swallows the tablet, grimacing at the taste. And without another word, she sinks back down into her covers, the sea of her hair splaying like pitch.

Her eyes flutter drowsily. Naruto stands, intent on giving her peace.

"Stay," she utters before he can leave. "Please..."

He stays.

And lingers, even after she falls asleep.

 **oOo**

He's bored.

He's got maybe two smokes and half of one hour before he's run out of cigarettes. He moseys up the fourth floor where Sasuke knows Itachi's lurking, self-sequestered from sunup until dusk.

He stops at the last door at the end of the hall, and kicks it open. The bolt loosens, the wood fractures, doorknob smacking against the wall.

Itachi sits in the middle of the room, painting.

Sasuke saunters in, going directly towards a moth-eaten armchair. He hooks his leg on the armrest, then he loafs back, placing a cigarette at the corner of his lip. He snaps the lighter open and it flickers, kindling the cigarette slowly. He pockets it and sucks the first hit. Smoke twirls from his nose, the side of his mouth. He leans his head back, peering through the smog as Itachi fondles pigment onto a canvas.

"Were you lonely?"

He says it in their language. Sasuke scoffs.

"Those will kill you," his brother adds.

"Your melodramatic swabbing kills me."

"English, then," Itachi mutters. "It gives you comfort."

"The lube in your dresser gives me comfort."

Silence.

"You will go through with the engagement," Itachi says. "It's what mother wants of you."

Sasuke fleers. "If you're so intent, why don't you go ahead and fuck the girl yourself."

"Father promised you to Yamanaka's only daughter, the day that you were born."

"Father was a cunt."

"When you were six, you pushed her into mother's koi pond knowing she could not swim. You stood there as she bashed inside the water, screaming out your name." He pauses, swirling the bristles of the paintbrush deeper into sanguine tint. "She almost drowned. Then father broke your arm that night, when Yamanaka called off the union between our families. Do you remember?" He clots the shapings of a woman's scarf, smearing downward. "How he hauled you up. How you squealed for mother to come and save you, how miserable you looked—"

" _Fuck yourself,_ " Sasuke snarls.

He stands, and in a second's flash, strides forward, swatting the bottles of pigment along with the portrait which instantly ruins from under the chaos of ink. He kicks the canvas. It cracks against the wall, riving the frame.

Itachi rises to his feet.

Sasuke wastes no time. He lopes towards him. His hand is in a fist by the time he jabs it into the direction of his brother's face. The blow itself is rightly speared, hell-bent, but sloppy. Itachi grasps it easily, wrenching downward by way of Sasuke's wrist. He mashes his grip, abrading bone with tendon. Sasuke grits, wincing. He makes to reciprocate, but finds himself paralyzed, the moment the air is punched empty from his gut. He flags forward, retching, toppling halfway upon Itachi's shoulder. Their positions are swapped in an instant, with Itachi slamming Sasuke's back onto the wall, pinning him.

A single hand snakes to seize Sasuke by the back of the hair, forcing him to look forward, and forward only. Itachi there, gazing clinically. He leans in, his mouth grazing the hot shell of Sasuke's ear.

"There is no hate in you," he whispers. "There is only fear."

He lets go, steps back.

Sasuke gags and slides from the wall, wilting.

 **oOo**

He washes the plates and stores away what's left of the juice.

Thereon, Naruto distributes the hours, setting goals for himself to fulfill. He sweeps the foyer, hilling the grime which he then strews outside with a dustpan he earlier found. The floorboards glow, the gloss of the rosewood mirroring now the amber mood of the manor.

He heads to the scullery, soaping the silverware with a mohair rag. When that's done, he feathers out cobwebs until only the kitchen hearth is left to clear up.

He hesitates. Moths flit around it, the occasional odors of rot. Still, he goes to his knees and brings down a match to look inside. Spiders. Bigger, hairier moths tangled into cobwebs, and all along the sides, mouldered husks of woodworm bugs. He slants the match and sees that there is a dead rat at the very back, dried and flat. He covers his nose when a chalky draft drifts in from the smokeshaft. He pouts. The spiders incite.

"What are you doing?"

Naruto shoots to his feet.

It's Sakura.

"I was just…" he looks back at the hearth, then back at her.

She crinkles her brow at him. Then she walks right past him, hurriedly unboxing cruets of spices and foodstuff. It dawns on him then, that the hour is late, that nighttide had long ago set. He panics. He hasn't even started with dinner.

"Peel them," she orders. She motions at a pile of potatoes. She goes to the tips of her toes, unearthing a sack of flour from the sideboard. "I'll make the pie."

Naruto nods, washes his hands, and does what he's told.

 **oOo**

Soon, there's a flurry of noise that comes echoing in from the staircase.

Sakura lets go of the rolling pin, rounding towards the commotion. Naruto follows, stopping only when she stops, at the end of the hallway.

It's Sasuke, storming down the immense flight of stairs. And above him, Itachi, observing calmly from the balustrade of the highest floor.

Sasuke stalks for the door, strain of wrath on his face. Sakura rushes forth, calling his name.

"Leave him," Itachi speaks from the banister. "He will return before dinner."

Sakura looks up, to argue back or to respond, but Itachi is already gone. As is Sasuke, who has slammed the entrance door aside, leaving it to flap back and forth on its hinges. Tides of wind billow in, each gust laced with the brumal scents of the ocean.

Sakura goes to shut it, fingers lingering the locks for longer than Naruto knows is necessary. She stays there, cradling the knob, as if expecting for Sasuke to return at any second.

He doesn't. And Naruto heads back to the kitchen as if nothing had happened.

 **oOo**

Dinner. Sakura's blueberry pie and Naruto's Silesian dumplings. A fruit salad, too, bordered with cuts of mango and slivers of lettuce.

"How was she," Sakura asks, "when you spoke to her this morning?"

It's the first time Sakura has spoken to him since she'd caught him slacking at the smokeshaft.

"She…" He clears his throat, trying to sooth the accent from his voice. "Looked well. I mean, she didn't seem so ill."

Sakura nods. "I'll go and see if she'd like to come downstairs for dinner."

"Should I go wi—"

She turns to leave, terse as ever. It leaves him with a stretched feeling in his chest, green and sickish, but he does not allow himself to dwell on it.

He heads the other way and begins to array the cups and plates onto the dining room table. The pie and the platter of dumplings, as well.

Soon, both women appear, arm-in-arm. Itachi, too, shadowing the mindful gait of his mother's footsteps. Naruto steps back, bending his neck as Sakura eases Mikoto onto her chair. Itachi sits on the right side of her while Sakura leaves the left chair empty. She sits next to it, instead. For Sasuke, Naruto suspects.

Naruto glances once in Mikoto's direction. Her gaze looms the humble alignment of food. She dons no purples upon her gown this time, but tristful hues of reddish-blue. Her hair is down, swathed against the white summits of her shoulders. Her lips are painted, opals gleaming in her ears, her slender nose resembling Itachi's. All of it, ideal. So high up, thinks Naruto, where even age nor years may touch them. The three of them—the _four_ of them—tall and pale and _fair_ —

Slowly, Naruto begins to understand, and so he takes some steps towards the side, intent on leaving the family to their privacy.

Mikoto stops him in his tracks.

"Don't be silly," she announces. "You will have dinner with us. Tomorrow, the next day, and all of the nights after that." She gestures at the seat on the left of her, the one Sakura had left free for her fiancée. "Come. Sit down with us."

Naruto blunders where he stands. But Mikoto insists, not once flinching.

He obeys. Slow and cautious, until at last he is sitting at her side. Itachi stares at him the whole time, a strange unemotion starred into the black narrow of his eyes.

"These are lovely," Mikoto beams. She nestles her fork deep into one of the dumplings, parting it in half. "Did you make these, Naruto?"

He nods. Sakura stiffens all the more beside him, her hands folded frozen on her lap. Naruto swallows. She knows it. And he knows it, too. He does not belong there. Even so, Mikoto starts to eat, ensuing dinner. After her, Itachi begins to eat, as well, mirroring her zest as well as her mannerisms.

Sakura starts to slice the pie. Itachi allots the salad. Thereon, no-one talks, until at one point Mikoto pauses, placing down her glass.

"Where is Sasuke?" she asks.

She turns toward Itachi, but Itachi does not have enough time to respond, the moment a sudden racket comes echoing in from the entrance hall. Sakura straightens in her seat, an anxious undeniable fret at her thigh.

"It's Sasuke. Should I—"

"No," Mikoto cuts. She smiles. "He will join us on his own."

Sakura heeds her, and Naruto sees, Itachi simpers.

An hour later, dinner comes to an end.

This night, Sasuke does not come down to join them.

 **oOo**

When the drinks are finished, Mikoto tilts her head and dismisses all from the table. All, except Naruto.

Her gaze settles upon him. She tells him nothing, soundlessly lifting her palm to the air. Naruto stands in an instant, taking her hand inside his. She goes to her feet, the under-tulle of her gown swirling soft on the flooring. She maneuvers like snowfall, almost gliding. She hooks her arm in his, her head leant against his shoulder.

Like this, they climb the stairwell in silence.

 **oOo**

They arrive at her bedroom.

It is dark, with only the light of the moon glimmering through the glass of her window. His full intention is to bow and then leave, but, again, she stops him.

She sits before the mirror of her redwood vanity. Wordless, she beckons him closer, reining the whole of her hair across one shoulder so that the zipper of her gown may display itself clear. Naruto's cheeks hotten, a garbled stutter in his throat clogging the exposal of his every reluctance.

Still, Mikoto waits patiently.

He cannot shirk her, nor will he overstep her, knowing full well of the kindness she has shown him.

He stopples his nerves. Then he steps towards her. He thinks he can feel her watching him from the reflection of the mirror, but he does not risk to check and look. He levels his hands, and with two nervous fingers, he clinches the zipper, tugging it down. The noise of it grates within the stillness of the room. The gown parts, like wings, inch for inch, revealing the pallid bareness of her back and shoulders.

He wavers halfway. But she does not speak nor does she halt him, so Naruto holds his breath and continues until the only traction keeping the gown on her person are her arms crossed loosely against her breasts.

She stands. He steps back and exhales unevenly. His palms are sweating and he knows without touching that his face is beet red. She does not tell him to look the other way, but he does so, anyway, the moment she begins to allow the deluge of fabric to slip from her frame. He hears her step out of it, can smell the floral gusts of her hair. She calls him by name.

Naruto heeds her.

A surge of remission overtakes him, seeing that she is already draped in the delicate silk of her nightdress. She reaches behind her neck for the clasp of her pendant, showing her struggle. He comes quickly forward, unfastening its clamp with slippery fingers.

She turns and takes it from his hands, thanking him. Their palms touch. He looks at her for a second longer than he knows he ever should. In the dark, her presence is astral, far from him or from anything else. Aloft, in another world, unreachable.

She doesn't look at him. She walks barefoot towards her bed. She sits, facing the light of the window.

"Goodnight," she tells him.

 **oOo**

 **feedback is the spark to my gear tbh**


	5. Bitumen

**i am determined to finish this. o^o that it took me half of forever to get back to it...well, there is no excuse.** **also, thank you _infinitely_ to all of those who commented. it means the world.**

 **oOo**

The next night, all is the same. For the one after, too.

Now it is Friday's forenoon and Naruto has taken breakfast into Mikoto's bedroom.

Their encounter is different this time. No cheer upon her face when he steps inside. And when at last he makes courage enough to speak up and greet her, she does not respond.

Thereon, Naruto keeps his gaze down; does not over-speak, does not test her. She eats little, and drinks even less of what he serves her. She offers her arm for the needle, closes her eyes. Then she gestures swift his dismissal. Naruto stands, heart set on leaving as quickly as she's asked, but finds that he cannot.

And so he lingers. Meek and uncertain, just outside the doorway. He swallows, cannot help it. He turns his neck to look, enough to peek in her direction.

She lies there. On her side, unmoving, gazing forward blankly, at the brown and white photograph Naruto now understands is a cherished portrait of her husband.

Slowly, she begins to fold into herself, sinking far into her covers. So much smaller now she seems, bed-silks susurrant beneath the grazing of her skin.

Silence.

Naruto looks away. He sidesteps, allowing the door to shut behind him.

He is at the banister of the second floor's hallway, by the time he hears the tremors of her weeping.

 **oOo**

There is a washroom Naruto discovers four doors from his room. Dilapidated, dust-ridden, but no less functional.

The aqueducts groan within the walls. He veers the shower valve. Minor leaks spurt through the pipe of the spout. He waits awhile, but the water stays cold. He threads his hand through the stream. His arm prickles.

He shuts the door and undresses. Then he steps in, eagerly rinsing his hair, his face, what marks of dirt he finds stamped to his forearms and legs. Half-frozen, he finishes, shivering through teeth as he quickly redresses.

His hair is still dripping by the time he hurries downstairs, where on his way to the kitchen he notices that the door to the estate has been left partially open. Light slithers in from the rift, each breeze of wind pinging like chimes through the hinges. Naruto goes to it. More to be beside it than to close it, and hears her outside, crooning the lilt to a psalm he does not understand.

In secret, he stands there and listens. And when lastly he musters the nerve, he pulls the door back and spots Sakura there, poised like a painting at the crux of the gardens. His breath catches, some silent wrench in his chest as he watches her braid through the twigs of the briars, plucking and piling huckleberries into a hand-woven basket.

He nibbles his lip.

It is perhaps another five minutes before he finally goes to her.

 **oOo**

She does not seem to notice him at first. But when at last Naruto sinks to sit down beside her, she stops in her singing and smiles at him.

"Good morning," she says.

What little sun there is pinkens in her hair. What mist there is seems to exclude her. Words melt before he can say them, and so he looks the other way, unable to face her.

She's quiet for a moment, but then she speaks up.

"I'm sorry," she says. "For the way that I've treated you."

Naruto looks at her. She takes her hands from the briars and brings them to rest on her lap. And though her tone itself is outright, her fingers tangle there, in her skirts, nervous and stained from the berries she's plucked.

"Do you...accept my apology?"

Naruto blinks.

"What—"

"Shut up," she snaps. "Just answer me."

"Yes," he says, and it's the quickest he's spoken.

She looks at him again, studying his face as if searching for a lie. Then she turns away, satisfied, before returning to her basket.

She's silent thereon. He swallows the urge to ask why, when or what. Her fingers go again to the sprigs. He follows her lead. He rolls up his sleeves, scoots to the side, and begins to comb through the soil. He roots up the occasional dayflower weed. He piles them neatly.

"Have you eaten?"

Naruto looks at her, but her gaze is strict on the berries. He shakes his head.

"Not yet."

"Neither have I." She pauses a moment, wiping both palms with her dress. "Are you hungry?"

"A little," he says. "Are—"

"A bit."

He nods, quite on the verge of racing back to the kitchen.

"I made these earlier," she stops him.

She reaches to her left and slowly scoots closer, presenting Naruto with a second basket he had presumed were more of the berries. He's wrong. And soon, the warm scent of phyllo goes to sweeten the space left between them.

"They're tarts. With tomato filling." She peels back the fabric. Naruto looks. Two doughy chunks, still fluffed from the oven. "I know it was probably stupid of me, but…" Her voice quakes. She catches herself and turns away for a moment. Then she breathes in, as if it were a very difficult thing to admit: "I made them for Sasuke."

The sound of the name is a slap to Naruto's head. Whatever excitement he'd felt, all the jittering spark in his chest—

"Oh," he says.

She looks down, sullen, at the two bits of bread. He thinks, the smallest must've been for her, the largest for Sasuke.

"It's his favorite. The stuffing. I wanted to surprise him with it." She laughs, though it is no thing of joy. "I told him I'd be here. Of course, he didn't say anything. He just. Stared. Through me, behind me. I don't know. And if I were honest, I thought you were him. When you walked up and sat next to me. The feeling I felt. I…can't explain it."

Naruto keeps quiet, knows only to nod when she's finished.

"It doesn't matter," she says.

And as quick as it'd started, she straightens, gathering her dress so that she may sit on her heels. She lays out the basket's cover, placing one tart before her and the other in front of him. She tucks a slip of hair behind one ear, dusts grass from the fabric. Then, almost shyly, she offers him a pocket-sized fork from the frills of the basket.

He takes it, and the smile she gives him he will not soon forget.

 **oOo**

It is late in the afternoon. The sun has set, sky fraught with cues of stormfall.

Now Naruto is on the fourth floor, as Sakura had asked, collecting wilted orchids from each the hallway's flowerpots. He thinks of her. With every brown stem that he culls, every frail leaf that he snips. And the taste of the tart that she'd shared with him, still warm and so real at the back of his tongue, a permanent memory.

He is almost finished by the time he begins to notice blots of paint upon the floor. An almost-trail, with some marks in the shape of what could have been bootprints. He follows it, stopping at the final door of the labyrinth hallway. Beneath, a mess of dried pigment along with several dents to the doorframe.

His first impression is that he hasn't, in fact, been the only person situating the manor's highest tier. His second impression is in that whoever had been kicking at the door had certainly kicked with enough force to've riven the wood by dint of persistence.

He opens it (though for a long moment he scolds himself not to open it), and steps in, there where he sees the fractured remains of a canvas and scattered glass pieces of what must have been bottles of paint. And in the centre of the room, a wrought iron easel displaying the portrait of an elegant woman, uncannily similar to all other paintings he'd seen strung throughout the mansion.

He goes to it, is drawn to it. Whits of glass splinter underneath him.

He is a few steps away from it when he begins to realize that the portrait is of Mikoto. Has always been Mikoto. Not just one, but every last one of them. He squints, comes closer. The hair is wet. Slick and viscous, running down the bone-white skin like bitumen. His arm moves on its own, his finger rising towards it—

"Do you like it?"

Naruto's heart jumps, then freezes. He spins quick on both his feet. It's Itachi, standing not a foot behind him, watching quietly.

Naruto swallows, certain that the embarrassment will kill him.

"M-mister," he sputters. "I mean, I mean _sir_ —I was just—"

"Looking?"

Naruto nods, frantically agreeing.

Itachi moves past him without another word. He assesses the portrait a moment. Then he strokes one finger, unhurried, into the murk of the hair. He pulls away. And when he does, Naruto swears that beneath the black luster, there is a strange, coagulated red.

"It's been since morning," Itachi says, though Naruto is unsure if the words are directed at him or to the fluid on his fingertip. "Yet..."

A scream.

Shrill, female, and like nothing Naruto's heard. But before he can react, Itachi reacts first.

He murmurs, "Go on."

Naruto bolts out the room.

 **oOo**

When at last Naruto gets there, wide-eyed and spent from the stairs, Sakura is already at Mikoto's side, attempting to ease her. They're on the floor, next to the window. Mikoto herself is out of her usual nightrobes, bare if not for a lacelike basque upon her figure.

Naruto stands there, feeling very much abashed and overwhelmed.

" _Naruto,_ " Sakura ushers. She looks to the bed, to the blankets, and Naruto goes to them immediately, forcing himself not to look down.

"I ran in and she was already like this," Sakura tells him. "She said she saw something. Something standing there. She wouldn't tell me."

From behind, Naruto wraps the blankets around Mikoto, who, in her palms, continues to weep inconsolably. He backs away, uncertain of what more he could do for her.

"Should I go and fetch a glass of—"

With one hard stare, Sakura orders him to shut up and sit.

Naruto shuts up and sits. Mikoto rebuffs from Sakura in an instant, leaning close to him, instead. Hesitant, Naruto places one hand on her back, letting her take comfort near his chest. Her sobbing fades. Snivels turn to whimpers, trembles wane. Soon, the room goes whisper-silent.

He does not look, but from the corner of his vision Naruto can feel Sakura scrutinizing him. Down and up, down and up.

She stands.

"It's probably the medicine," she says, though she does not construe it kindly. "I'll go and make dinner."

She leaves and shuts the double-doors behind her.

Naruto takes a breath, perplexed between guilt and his growing concern for Mikoto. Between what he'd seen upstairs—like... _cruor_ hidden in paint—between what it is he should say now, what he shouldn't.

Mikoto speaks for them both.

"Forgive this." Her tone is frail. "It is unbecoming."

She draws the blankets closer to herself and slowly moves away from him. She lends out her hand. Naruto goes to his feet, aids her in standing. Together, they walk to her bed. She sits, he doesn't. She motions to the ottoman, and he obeys. They're nearly at eye-level before she admits,

"I see him."

It's a secret, hushered syllables too tender not to believe. He looks at her, attempting to descry what she would mean.

"Him?"

She nods. He thinks back, remembers all they'd spoken of.

"Your husband?"

She looks to her lap, an inch from despondence.

"Do you believe me?" she asks.

It's a long and echoing silence until Naruto finally nods.

She brightens, reaches out and cups his face like a gem in her hands. He lets her, leans his cheek towards her palm. And for just the space of that moment, he thinks he may want to stay there. Just there, lulled in her touch.

 **oOo**

This night, dinner is not served at the table. Rather, Sakura returns not an hour later. Two ornate platters balanced in her arms. Cottage pie and bits of halva.

Naruto relieves her of one, goes to place it on Mikoto's lap. The other, as well. Except this time their fingers overlap. Sakura takes a step back, as if burned by the contact.

"Will you join us?" Mikoto asks.

"I would love to," says Sakura. She clears her throat. "Though I was planning...on waiting for Sasuke. Downstairs, for when he comes back."

For one sharp and overpowering moment, Naruto's need to make her see otherwise acidulates the tip of his tongue. He keeps his mouth shut, however. Must.

Mikoto smiles. "I'm sure he'd cherish that."

Naruto cannot bear to look, but knows for a fact that Sakura has flushed at the words. She's gone a second after, the clangor of her heels a distant echo from the stairwell.

When the noise quells, Mikoto calls him over. He crosses the room, sits once more on the footstool.

"She's a lovely girl," muses Mikoto. She parts through the halva with her fork, strict, as if dissecting it for errors. "Devoted to him. In love with him, too." She scrapes the halva to the rim of the plate, does not bother to taste it. "I hope Sasuke will acknowledge it soon."

Naruto fumbles to agree. Mikoto notices. She pauses, puts down her cutlery.

"Is something bothering you, Naruto?"

His name is silk, the way that she says it. He looks at her and quickly shakes his head. She smiles at him. The lie is obvious.

"Tomorrow is an important day," she divagates. "The wedding will receive its final blessing. Which means, Lady Chiyo will come from the upper city to visit."

He blinks. "Lady Chiyo?"

"Mhm. Yorkville's matriarch," says Mikoto. "As well as Sakura's grandmother. Small, if a bit crass. But very distinguished." She cuts a chunk from the pie, seeming to create a list in the air with her eyes as she chews it. "We'll need groceries. Lamb and fresh milk. Flowers for the entrance and scented tapers for the table. Perhaps take Sakura with you? The markets are a second nature to that girl."

"Yes, ma'am," Naruto avers. "First thing, no later."

Mikoto giggles.

"You remind me so much of him," she quips. "My Sasuke." She slides the plate away from herself. "A boy like you. I should not think he'd find a better friend." She places her hand on the side of Naruto's neck, caresses it. "I am so glad that you are here with us. That you've stayed..."

Mid-word, the salicin begins to kick in.

Her hand slips from his neck, and though she tries to control it, her lashes flitter her to sleep.

 **oOo**

Dead of night. Pitch black if not for a single candle burning on the nightstand.

Trees thrash outside the window, leafless branches scraping claw marks on the glass.

Sasuke cannot sleep. Not even after his wrist is finished jerking down and up beneath him. His cock goes limp against his stomach. Dry. He stares at the ceiling. At the candle and its wax. How it flattens, globule for globule, till at last it snuffs and the room is left as dark as the outside.

He feels her there. To his right. Her naked leg hooked around his thigh, the rest of her pressed too close against him. He shoulders over towards the edge, bit by bit. The mattress creaks beneath his weight. A moment later, she is there again. Against him.

He waits for her to settle. Then he starts to stand, dislodging limb and arm from out her rigid grasp. He wrenches up his pants, leaves the hem of them undone. He exits the room, shirtless and barefoot. And wanders the halls.

 **oOo**

He roves in and out of empty rooms. Up, until he finds himself amidst the highest floor.

The floorboards scritch. Shadows cast, the wind of the outside forcing whispers through the open cracks. He thinks to leave, miffed an hour in with utter boredom, till on a stroke of chance he spots the shallow flicker of an oil lamp.

Sasuke goes to it. Outmost door and to his right, and lays his hand upon the metal doorknob. He twists. The hinges stutter open, just enough for him to slip inside.

The interior is simple. No bed, old furniture and cobweb. But in the left flank of the room, Mikoto's doe-eyed urchin sprawled upon what used to be Fugaku's divan. No blanket, likely quaking from the cold, but asleep. Naruto. Because that is what Sakura has called him.

Now, heat.

Like tips of feathers at his spine, enlivening. Sasuke nips his lip, chews it, feels it all amounting gently in his prick. He steps closer. Thrill for thrill, heart a storm yet eyelids low in inexpression.

He stares. Seconds, minutes. His hand rouses on its own, towards the solid furrows of his abdomen, to the pulse aside his neck, dandling back and down again, pretending— _pretending_ —till suddenly Naruto starts to mumble nonsense. The boy flips the other way, curling in face-first against the cushions.

Sasuke's arm swings back down beside him. A flinch at the corner of his lip, like disappointment.

He turns, half hard, and spots a dusted desk there, arrayed with a short display of personal belongings. He goes to it, goes through it. Dated envelopes fattened in with letters, religious bibelots, books, neatly piled photos.

He empties the envelopes first. A double dozen folded notes flop out, some stuffed inside the other. He chooses one, outspreads it on the desk. All of it in Polish. He pushes it aside, unfolds another. And another, every single one of them.

He moves on to the photographs, but not before he thumbs through every titled book. One by one he turns the photos over, attempting to unriddle through the foreign labels. Most of them show the same two people. A woman, long hair, far past her waist. And a man. Pale-eyed, tall, and broad of shoulder. And for the last and final of the photographs, all three of them together.

The image is badly faded. Overfolded, overheld. Sasuke brings it closer towards himself. Something like vineyards stretching out behind them. And fixed into the woman's hair, a moth-shaped pin which now slithers out and clinks onto the softwood of the desk.

Sasuke tosses the photographs aside. And as if pinching for a dying bug, culls the hairpin forth between two fingers.

Creak of wood. Rustling of clothes.

He turns. Naruto there. Sitting up and wide-eyed.

"Cute," says Sasuke. He dangles the hairpin in mid-air. "Reminds me of your haggard mother."

"Give it back."

"What for?"

"It's mine."

"Who said?"

" _Give it to me_."

Sasuke laughs. "Come and claim it."

 **oOo**

 **feedback is the wick to the soul tbh**


	6. Alkaline

**i am slightly ashamed that this took forever. though i should mention that I hauled the whole story into a major edit some weeks ago, so now I feel as though it reads a lot smoother. this thing is just...very near and dear to my heart tbh. ;-;**

 **also, I would like to thank every single last one of you who has commented or simply favorited the story. it means the world.**

 **all beta credit goes to "Vivian" on ao3.**

 **oOo**

Rush of sound, skid of skin on wood, and Naruto has rammed his way across the room, reaching for the hairpin. Sasuke holds it high, dangled glow above his head, grinning.

"On your toes, then?"

He laughs, flagrant and delighted. Naruto reaches one more time, full aware now of the color that has risen to his face. For it is no secret in the candlelight this way, that Sasuke is taller, broader, that Sasuke knows this. Naruto's teeth grit. Pride keeps him from jumping, from begging. It mocks him, the pin's glint just an inch from his reach. His fingers graze the metal. Their chests meet. Sasuke simply reaches higher, watching Naruto closely.

"Give it back," is all Naruto says. He swallows, as if to keep his voice quiet. "It's not yours."

The softening ebb in his tone is distinct, and it brings forth a shame that spreads across Naruto's chest like a torch.

"And what if I made it? More mine than yours?" Sasuke fleers, beginning to bend the pin in his fist. "What if I snapped it in two?"

He starts to, and all Naruto knows is that he's somehow shoved Sasuke back with both hands, crashing him hard against an old wooden dresser. A painting drops from its hinge from the impact, a glass filled with water slips from the desk. It shatters, and after, the hairpin falls to the floor.

Naruto sinks to his knees—to find it, to _find_ it— but Sasuke claws him upwards by the root of his hair, toeing the hairpin away before swapping their positions. The back of Naruto's head slams with the dresser. The room blurs. He writhes, warm breath mixed with his, Sasuke's dark eyes agleam and invasive.

"Did I sever a nerve?" sneers Sasuke. "That I've figured you gutless, houseless, readily tucked beneath my mother's skirts?" He presses closer. Whispers, "Or is it Sakura's you want to see a little more?" He bucks in. Their cocks touch. "Perhaps I could bring her here and I could _show_ you—"

Bile bristles, so foul that Naruto cannot keep his fist from stamping Sasuke's mouth. He hears only the stiff snap of teeth being hit, and then of Sasuke stumbling backwards, chuckling lowly. A reddening wound there, sickled with blood. Naruto's eyes widen, but not by much, by the time the blow is returned and a split pain jolts through his jaw. His fingers go to it, to succor the swelling, but Sasuke is on him like a beast in an instant. Naruto's thrown at the wall. Sasuke's thrown, too. They meet in the middle and Sasuke's fist pummels Naruto's side while Naruto's elbow meets again with Sasuke's bruised mouth, smearing it bloody.

The impact is crude. It leaves Sasuke staggered. A curl to his lip, seeming amused with the amount of blood he is shedding. Naruto rams him, this time with the blunt of his shoulder, and Sasuke falls to the floor. He doesn't get up, but instead tongues the rindle of blood from his mouth.

Naruto stands there, fists clenched, his breath feeling heavy. His jaw hurts. His eye stings from the offshoot of pain in his rib. He steps forward. Rain slaps on the glass of the lucarne. No place to go. Realization sinks in.

"I—" He swallows. Guilt clogs his throat. He thinks of Sakura, the look on her face if she'd stood there, _Mikoto_. "I'm sorry—"

Sasuke says nothing. Just stays where he is, braced on both elbows, his naked chest rising and falling.

It's quiet, if not for their breaths. The candlelight dwindles, the room dims. The wood creaks with each step that Naruto takes. He feels Sasuke's stare upon him, the length of him milk-white in the pall. Naruto offers his hand. Sasuke's eyes linger to it, back up, and in one single movement, he yanks Naruto down to the floor. It isn't violent, but it is starkingly frank, and by the time Naruto has found sense enough to tussle against it, he finds that Sasuke is already mounted upon him, grinding down with his hips.

Back and forward. The traction flowers quickly into a hardening bliss. Naruto's body pistons for more on its own, fevered with instinct. Sasuke presses down harder, tighter. It fattens Naruto's cock, wires his heart, refusal fusing with what is left of adrenaline. Naruto squirms from it, tries to slide from it, but Sasuke leans in, pinning Naruto's wrists to the floor. This close, blood stipples Sasuke's face like a painting, his lips red and bowed like a girl's. Delicate visage, silently panting, _warm_.

Naruto looks from him, jilts from him, but the friction beneath persists in sweltering waves. Naruto's vision suffuses. He opens his mouth, wanting to argue, to _beg_ , but a groan rills out, instead. Thrill laves, like sparks in his pelvis. Full of heat, kneading gently. He can feel Sasuke, too, rocklike near his stomach, can hear— _can feel_ —the way his every breath is hitching. The candle snuffs, like a secret, and Naruto feels his eyes begin to roll. He closes them, feeling it, _and feeling it_ —

Sasuke hunches in, their faces all too close. His brows knit, his lips part. Then a softening whimper oils from Sasuke's wet mouth. Naruto comes. The flutter so frenzied within him that he cannot help but open his eyes so that he may watch Sasuke's expression. His half-lidded gaze, the jet black silk of his hair—

Then, the faint creak of steps from the stairs.

The high peaks and recedes in an instant. Sticky heat slicks Naruto's thigh, plastering there. Sasuke stops, winded and flushed to the neck. He looks away, as if to listen more closely. The world spins to focus. The door isn't closed.

Naruto swallows, unable to move. He thinks he can feel his heart in his throat, panic inflaming.

Sasuke gets to his feet, wiping his mouth with his wrist. He simpers, _stares_ , then slips like a wisp from the room.

 **oOo**

Daybreak.

Pink light blooms on the floorboards. Jays sing outside the window, gladdening the sog left behind by the storm. Naruto lies there, curled on the divan. No blanket, so deep in sleep that the taste of hot babka feels as real as the buttermilk custard sweetening his mouth.

Knocks. Faint, then loud enough to have him bumbling off of the divan and towards the source of the noise. He's half asleep when he opens the door. He rubs his eyes. It doesn't quite work.

"Good morning," Sakura greets him.

Naruto's mind revs back alive, as does his vision. She stands there, dressed in green tussore, silk gigot sleeves, the hem of her gown frilled to fall an inch from her feet. Heat swathes his heart. He can't keep from staring.

"Good morning, um, ma'am."

Nothing at first, then she sidesteps and sighs, sliding into the room on her own.

"I told you," she teases. " _Ma'am_ makes me sound like I'm already marrie—"

He can't hear her. The stench of _him_ on her, all of _him_ on her, on her _and on her_. Suddenly, all of last night comes cudgeling down.

"Naruto?"

Weight in his chest, a repulsion so potent that Naruto can't keep his balance. Sick flips his stomach. He keens, hand shooting up to cover his mouth.

"Naru—"

He gags, clenching his eyes while forcing it down. Sakura rushes to him, her hand on his back, the other palming his forehead for fever.

"Are you alright?" She rakes his hair to the side with her fingers. "Your jaw. It's a bit…" She presses gently on it. "Swollen." Her tone shifts, "What—"

"I fell," he manages.

"You didn't." She states it with anger. "I _know_ something happened." She looks behind her, the desk, the floor, determined to prove it. "Sasuke, he was here. With you, at night, wasn't he?" Her voice breaks to whispers. "Naruto, _please_ —"

" _I fell_."

Naruto nudges from her, realizing he's all but snarled at her. Her arms flag back beside her, her chin raising high though the tears she holds back glint to betray her.

"I'll wait outside." Her tone is ice "I've given Lady Mikoto her medicine. We'll get what we need from the market and return to make dinner."

He can't respond. She doesn't spare him a glance. She leaves, shoving his arm to the side with her shoulder.

 **oOo**

A cab waits outside. They take the back grove towards Little Syria, arriving at the district's outdoor market. It bustles near the shoreline, organized by local farmers. It's cost-effective, and far more friendly. At least, that's what Sakura tells him.

They make their way, down a gravel road and towards the merchant posts. They don't talk. The sky is glum, gravid with the upshot of last day's deluge. Even so, children sit upon the seaside, giggling, some with baby siblings swaddled to their backs. They dig for seashells, some build mounds with sand.

"Sweet, isn't it?" Sakura says at last.

Naruto turns to look at her. A softness in her eyes, as if nothing had happened between them. He nods. She smiles, shifting her step so that she may walk nearer.

"Do you still remember? When you were little?"

He remembers most of it.

"No," he says.

She nods. There is only the distant bickering of vendors, the muffled crunching of her heels upon the shingle.

"I do," she says. "Tugging on my grandmother's dress, begging for sweets, or for her to teach me something other than the craft of holding dinner spoons correctly." She sighs. "There were two of us then. I think she liked my cousin best. Red hair, a _man_. Taught him all she knew of art, ventriloquism."

Naruto wants to ask what that is, who her cousin is. Why holding a spoon was more important. Instead, he looks away, saying nothing.

She sighs again.

"I...I shouldn't have done that," she tells him. "It was wrong of me, to have even pushed into your room like that." She looks at him. "And anyway, people fall sometimes." She buttons and unbuttons her glove. "And you're a bit clumsy. Aren't you?"

It's more a whisper. A final bid for him to tell her. Here, where no one will hear them. To tell her because it hurts her that he doesn't, to tell her because he _wants_ her to see it, the lie built upon her—her _feelings_ —to tell her because he…

Naruto swallows, looks down.

"Sakura, I—"

Wind stirs the tide. It balms the air all around them. It heavies Naruto's heart, twists through his gut. It feels like duplicity. Like he can think of nothing but the scent of Sasuke's soft hair, the breeze of the coast in his breath, his skin, the fragile secret in the dark made between them—

"Naruto?"

"I…" He clears his throat. "I am. Kind of clumsy."

She smiles at him.

They walk the rest of the way amid quiet.

 **oOo**

After the fruit stands (plum and fresh shallot), Sakura haggles the butchery post.

Naruto watches. The line is long. One look behind them, and the butcher agrees to Sakura's deal. She pays. The butcher counts up the change, bundles their cut, then shoos them away. Lamb, as Mikoto instructed.

"It's so crowded today," Sakura says.

Naruto looks at her, careful not to crush the bag of meat against him.

"Does it bother you?"

She chuckles. "No, actually. Does it bother you?"

He shakes his head. She grins. It's playful. Naruto stares, feeling his lip begin to tug on its own.

"It's different, I think," she says. "Here than in town."

He nods, has noticed it, too, the ongoing babel of all sorts of languages.

Drizzle lands on his nose. He looks up. It must be the initials of noon, yet the grey in the sky hasn't brightened. They're halfway back to the cab by the time a group of children dash by, sprinting barefoot towards the shoreline. In the distance, an old man with an ice cart.

Sakura pauses. "Would you like some?"

"What is it?"

"Sweet ice. Maybe sorbet."

"It isn't summer," Naruto says.

"So what?" She glides up in front of him. "It'll sell if we don't hurry."

Naruto glances at the shore, at the expensive silkwork of her dress.

"But what if—"

She laughs, thrilled in a way he has not heard it.

"A race, then?"

She tightens the ribbon in her hair and runs ahead without him. Her gown dirties in the sand. Grime amasses on her shoes. She lets it. A frolic to her step, appended by the lazy mouthing of the ocean.

"Come on, then!"

She waves him over.

Naruto swallows, smiles, and hurries onto the bank to join her.

 **oOo**

She chooses sweet plum, and he chooses cherry.

They walk back, their steps stamping in the sand. Gulls spiral in the sky. Gust tangles in their hair, the noises of the market muted now by the distance that they've made. And for a moment, Naruto feels as though he may not wish their return to the mansion.

"You know," Sakura says. "My grandmother used to do this. For Sasori and I. When we were kids."

Naruto looks at her, her lips crimsoned by the ice treat.

"Your cousin?"

"Yes." She smiles at him. "As for tonight..." She clears her throat. "Be nice, alright? But not _too_ nice. My grandmother hates that."

Naruto nods, swilling a mouthful of the ice and its syrup.

"Do you have cousins?" she asks.

He thinks for a moment. "I'm not sure."

She tucks a ringlet of hair to the back of her ear.

"What about...your parents?"

The question is hesitant. It hangs in the air for a moment. Naruto's gaze drops.

"I'm sorry," she stammers, "that was careless—"

"My father was drafted," he says, not letting her finish. "We left, and my mom got sick on the ship to the island." He swallows, words slipping from his mouth before he can stop them. "They said it was contagious, so she couldn't land." His throat hardens, his mouth dries. "She died."

Silence. Slowly, Sakura comes closer, her shoulder touching his arm as they walk.

"Isn't it scary? All by yourself?"

He shakes his head. "Not really."

"I would be scared."

"Why?"

"Alone. In a strange place…"

"I don't think it's strange," he says.

She looks at him. "You think?"

"Do you?"

She chuckles. "You do that a lot."

"Do what?"

"Ask things. Ask _back_. Whenever we talk..."

She slows down. He slows down with her. They're nearing the end of the shoreline. No one's around. Sakura reaches then, no warning, wiping a sweet-stain from the edge of his mouth with her thumb. It lingers. Her eyes are green, her glove is warm. An urge, a hot guilt, the utter need to _touch_ her—

She steps back, her gaze towards the floor.

"Come on," she murmurs. "We should head home."

 **oOo**

The cab drops them off near the garden's footpath. The walk to the door is quick. The manor stands tall. Its shadow spans, lengthened now by the dying of the daylight.

"We're late," whispers Sakura. She culls the key from her basquine. "I didn't think so much time would have passed."

Before he can answer, Sakura unlocks the door. The hinge scratches open. A waft of air drifts from the estate, and Naruto feels it is colder than the breeze from outdoors. They step in. The door stutters shut, echoing sharp through the foyer. Immediately, Sakura stiffens beside him.

"My...my lady," she starts, "you're not in bed—"

Naruto follows Sakura's gaze. She's right. Mikoto stands, fingers lacing through the wilted orchids of a porcelain jardiniere. She turns towards them, no expression, and begins to come closer. Her hair banners inklike with her movement, the blood-red of her gown made lucent beneath the offshoot of the chandelier.

Naruto straightens, expecting that she will want to examine the food from the market. She doesn't. Instead, Mikoto pauses, pale and inscrutable before him. She smiles, not once glancing Sakura's way.

"Perhaps my oldest may accompany you for the next time," she says.

It's toneless. She reaches, cupping Naruto's cheek. A gentle shiver laps through his spine, warm, then scathing, the moment his gaze drifts towards the right.

Sasuke.

There, lax by the staircase. His chin lifted high, a knowing sneer to his lip as he watches.

Instantly, Naruto feels nausea fill in his gut. It stretches his skin, throttles his heart. It hurts. He blinks, a ring like a second pulse in his eardrums—

"Did you slip, Naruto?" queries Mikoto. "Your clothes."

Naruto swallows. He shakes his head several times. "No, ma'am."

"Traffic, was it?"

"No, ma'am."

She takes her hand from his face, smiles again. Slowly, Naruto begins to comprehend his mistake.

"Sakura," Mikoto announces. "Give him the fruit. Lady Chiyo may fluster knowing our home holds no _proper_ understanding of conjugal dinners."

Sakura gives him the fruit. And the moment she does, Naruto notices the fault in her eyes, the stilted way in which she refuses to look at him. Mikoto steps to the side, allowing his path towards the kitchen.

Hesitant, Naruto lowers his head. He excuses himself, leaving behind the muffled resound of Sasuke's amusement.

 **oOo**

He enters the scullery to rinse off the shallots and plums. He washes his hands, then carefully fastens the faucet. He stares at the drain. His fingers are shaking.

It's so quiet he can hear the wild flounce of his heartbeat. He swallows, closes his eyes, but cannot make out what is being said in the foyer. Going back enters his mind. Tarrying someplace close to the hall, or feigning some urgent rush to the restroom—

It is his own fault.

The look on Sakura's face, the ridicule Sasuke had _prized_ seeing her in. Naruto's fists clench. He turns on his heel, determined, but stills the moment a noise is struck in the silence.

Clapped, akin to a slap. Then nothing.

 **oOo**

This night, Sakura does not come down to help him.

Naruto busies himself in the kitchen, forcing his mind not to think. The slicings of lamb hiss on the stove, the _sernik_ takes shape in the oven. He flowers the plums as best as he can with a peeling knife, and finds a fresh pouch of parboiled rice which he then gently pours inside of a stockpot, drizzling slivers of shallot along with flakings of provolone cheese.

He allows it to steam, listening to his own starving stomach. And when at last all is ready, he lines out the platters, distributing portions so that only a few trips back and forth might be made.

It works. He circles the dining room table, arranging flatware in front of each chair. He steadies the candles Mikoto had wanted, stepping back to make sure that they stay. They do. The sernik rests in the middle, sweetening the room. Smooth, warm, and smelling like home. Latticed on top, like his mother had taught him.

Soon, knocks on the door.

Naruto backs from the table. He sees Itachi stride down the staircase, donning a high-collar dress shirt upon a form-fitting vest. He tightens the tie on his neck. A few steps behind him, Sakura starts to descend.

Downcast, a flashy gown squeezing her waist. She folds her hands neatly in front of her, the ribbon gone from her hair.

Naruto's brow knits. He looks away, gathers the salvers, and takes his place back to the kitchen.

 **oOo**

The hour strikes eight. An usher of voices, chairs being moved. Then, the onset of conversations he cannot discern.

It's evening, yet drab light clings to the clouds. Naruto sits by the stove, pulling loose strings from his sleeve. The wind keens through the windows, stirring all the slag left behind in the chimney. He shivers. It's cold, now that the stove has been divested of heat. He leans his head on it. His breath chalks the air. He can't stop from thinking.

The blow he had heard, Sasuke's poisonous grin. Sakura's thumb near his lip, the gnawing _thrill_ it had seeded. A thrill taught, a _craving_ , borne hot beneath the hex of Sasuke's soft hips.

Shame, like a shiv to his rib.

Naruto tears out the thread, loosening his sweater. His eyes clench. Disgust, the claw of contrition. He could have _stopped_ it, he could have _scorned_ him, he could have gone back and told Mikoto the truth, he could have—

"My mother wants for your company."

Naruto looks up.

Itachi.

Naruto springs to his feet, quickly wiping the dam from his eyes.

"And for the wine," adds Itachi. He steps forward, culling a flask of Malvasia clean from the wine rack. "You shall pour it," he says. "Then take your seat to my right."

He offers the flask. Naruto nods, bringing the bottle close to his chest. Still, Itachi remains, gaze trenchant as he quietly stares.

"Go, then," he says.

It's faint.

Naruto goes, asking no questions.

 **oOo**

 **feedback is the light to my wick tbh.**


End file.
